3.4.17

When I last
wrote about the Orsay Museum (see here) one
was not allowed to take photos inside. This seems now to have changed…, but in
any case, what now follows is about what you find outside the museum, on the
esplanade.

The major installation
here is a collection of six statues, referred to as representing the “Six Continents”. They were originally created for the third Paris World’s Fair or “Exposition
Universelle” in 1878, could be found in front of the “Palais de Trocadero” and
remained there until the construction of the “Palais de Chaillot” for the Paris
World’s Fair in 1937 (referred to as “International Exposition of Art and Technology
in Modern Life”, see my posts here and here). An amazing thing is that
these statues, which in 1935 were transferred to the city of Nantes, ended up on a public
dump before being saved and installed in front of the museum when it was
opened in 1986. (I found the picture of the abandoned statues on this site.)

The Eiffel
Tower was of course constructed only 11 years later than the 1878 exhibition,
but here we can see not only where the “Six Continents” were placed, but also
some pictures of animal statues, which also remained at the Trocadero until
1935 and now also can be found in front of the Orsay Museum.

A closer
look on the statues, representing the “Six Continents”.

Well…

So, in
front of the Museum, we can also find the “Jeune Eléphant pris au Piège” par
Emmanuel Fremiet…

… the “Rhinocéros”
by Alfred Jacquemart…

… and the “Cheval
à la Herse” by Pierre Rouillard.

Behind the museum, you can find two statues by Antoine Bourdelle, named “Force
de Volonté” and “Victoire”. (I wrote recently, here, about the Bourdelle Museum.)

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My previous blog, PHO, was in operation for a year as from March 2007. It contains similar posts as this one, basically talking about different well known or more secrete sites in Paris. You can reach it by clicking HERE.